Chapter 7
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: Surviving
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“Haaah!”
“Hrrgh!”
Both of us unleashed the Reverse Blood Great Law, exploding our qi reserves, and our speed more than doubled.
But qi explosion only lasted about a quarter of an hour at most.
The time it took to sip a cup of tea—we had to put as much distance as possible between us and those bastards.
Otherwise, the flying darts and throwing knives would turn us into pincushions.
Just a little farther. Just a bit more…
A river came into view ahead.
Beyond that hill lay a cliff a thousand feet deep.
No matter how much of killing machines they were, they wouldn’t follow us there.
The moment we reached the cliff—
“Got you! You little rabbits!!”
A figure suddenly burst out from the front, lunging at us.
It was the Blood Wolf Corps centurion.
He’d predicted our escape route from the start, had his men herd us like rabbits, then circled around through the woods to reach the cliff ahead of us.
Despair washed over me in an instant.
Black smoke curled from his curved sword.
Sword aura.
That meant the Blood Wolf Corps centurion before us was a peak-level master.
At least two or three stages above us.
If we clashed, we wouldn’t last even a single exchange.
“Dodge!”
The man from the Blood Wolf Corps slashed his sword diagonally at us.
I yelled to dodge and threw myself right, while 102 hurled himself left.
In that moment, a searing pain like a branding iron tore into my left thigh.
But there was no time to check the wound.
All I could think was to hurl myself off the cliff.
Whether I die here or fall to my death, it’s all the same!
In the end, I threw myself over the cliff, feeling for a moment like I was soaring through the air.
And then I saw it.
102, split open diagonally from belly to shoulder, tumbling down.
“N-No!!!”
It was only a few seconds, but it felt like time had frozen as I watched 102 slowly split apart and plunge into the water.
Splash!
His mangled body swept away by the rapids.
I stared at him in dazed horror.
But there was no time to recover his body.
A barrage of hidden weapons, sword energies, and sword auras rained down toward the surface.
I dove as deep as I could, pushed off the riverbed, and swam.
The current was swift, giving me decent speed.
But then something started going wrong with my body.
The qi explosion was ending.
Strength drained rapidly, and my dantian felt utterly hollow.
I had to surface as fast as possible and find a safe spot.
But could I really escape their clutches?
The Blood Wolf Corps bastards were probably waiting on the surface.
How far had I drifted?
Unable to hold my breath any longer, I tried to surface.
And that’s when I saw it.
A figure approaching at terrifying speed!
They followed me all the way here? Persistent bastards!
Thinking it was a Blood Wolf Corps pursuer, I drew the knife from my bosom and swung.
But the figure deflected my knife like a water ghost and struck my pressure points with ghostly precision.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
“Guh!”
Then he grabbed my hair roughly and dragged me somewhere.
Just as I thought I was done for, he suddenly flung me out of the water.
“Kuhak! Cough! Cough! Blegh!!!”
I vomited up a bellyful of water, gasping raggedly.
“Hah! Hah! Hah! Wh-where…?”
A cave.
A very narrow one at that.
In that instant, strength ebbed from my body like the tide.
The qi explosion time was up.
Now it was time to pay the price for using it a second time in just a week.
“Arrrgh!”
I writhed in agony as my muscles tore apart fiber by fiber.
Through it all, the mysterious figure before me silently watched my suffering.
That’s where my memory ends.
The hellish pain snapped the thread of my consciousness.
“Still haven’t found him?”
“My apologies. We’ve deployed all hands to scour the riverbanks, but he vanished like a ghost.”
“Hmph. We need to withdraw before the righteous faction reinforcements arrive, but we only caught this one? Damn it all…”
In his hand dangled 102’s severed head.
The Blood Wolf Corps centurion pondered briefly, then spotted a young man passing by with a bundle of nets in the distance.
He looked like a local fisherman catching fish in the river.
“Perfect! We’ll pass off that guy’s head.”
It was an outrage against heaven and earth, but not a single Blood Wolf Corps member around him batted an eye.
They even seemed nonchalant.
“Doesn’t he look too different?”
“Mangle it enough, and they won’t tell.”
“Then I’ll fetch the head, sir.”
And so, that day, one fisherman unjustly lost what sat atop his shoulders.
When I opened my eyes, I was stripped down to my undergarments, with an unfamiliar old man crushing herbs beside me.
He was missing one arm.
“Lie still.”
The sword wound had been stitched while I was out.
The one-armed old man carefully applied the crushed herbs to the stitched gash on my thigh.
Sizzle— Sizzle—
“Your body’s in bad shape. Never seen one so spectacularly wrecked in my life.”
I could say the same.
Even if it was my own body, it was ridiculously battered.
From overusing qi explosion, bruises and tears riddled me from head to toe.
I wondered how you’d even have to hit someone to bruise so prettily and evenly.
On top of that, countless scars I’d been shocked by before.
And now, fresh wounds layered over them.
Even for my body, this seemed excessive.
The old man worked in silence, applying herbs, then spoke as he bandaged me.
“You must be wondering who I am and where we are.”
“Of course. Who are you, elder?”
“We’ll talk once you’ve recovered. Plenty to discuss.”
With that, the one-armed old man vanished.
Staring at his retreating back, I gazed up at the unfamiliar ceiling and muttered.
“…At least I didn’t die.”
I thought of 102 dying before my eyes.
“102…”
I wanted to cry for him, but no tears came.
Had living as an assassin dried them up?
Soon, rage boiled within me.
Dare to use Hwang Tae-seong and try to kill me? Dare? I’ll make them regret it. Absolutely!
I vowed revenge against that damned Heavenly Demon and the Demonic Cult.
The Murim Alliance was like a house in mourning.
The raid on the Demonic Cult’s secret sub-branch in Luoyang had cost over 150 elite warriors, and including reinforcements from various sects, the total dead neared 300.
In the somber joint incense hall, the Murim Alliance Leader and five elders sat with grim faces, clad in mourning white.
Around them, the heads of the fallen warriors’ sects and clans pressed in protest.
“Alliance Leader! Will you just sit idle?”
“This is blatant provocation!”
“We demand blood revenge!”
“Heh, righteous faction honor in the dirt—how can we face our ancestors? Amitabha.”
Truth be told, the one hurting most was Alliance Leader Na Cheon-bong himself.
He’d never dreamed of losing so many carefully nurtured elites so futilely.
It’s all that demonic Heavenly Demon’s fault! How many brothers did we send off in the last Righteous-Demonic War ten years ago because of him alone?
Na Cheon-bong felt his blood surge at the mere thought of the Heavenly Demon, but since he’d approved this operation, he couldn’t vent openly.
It’d be like spitting in the wind.
I should’ve been more cautious. Tch.
The head of the Eight Wonders Sect, who’d lost 50 first-rate experts from his clan, demanded excitedly.
He’d lost his son; his eyes were bloodshot.
“If the Murim Alliance just watches, I’ll lead my sect against the Ten Thousand Great Mountains alone!”
“Calm yourself, sect head.”
“Do I look calm right now!!”
The Cheongsong Clan head pressed.
“What do the Demonic Cult bastards say? They really want round two?”
“They claim it’s our own doing and keep dodging.”
“Intruding their turf with a strike force, and that’s their excuse?”
“Their leader insists the Central Plains belong to all, we struck first, and they merely counterattacked. Plus, yesterday they sent a damage claim demanding compensation from us.”
“Th-Those heaven-defying scum!”
“Alliance Leader! This is righteous pride at stake! Issue the Murim decree now! Teach them a lesson!”
“Yes! Leader!”
“Smash those wicked dogs’ skulls!”
“But our justification is weak. We did strike first; that’s fact.”
“You have a point, Leader. War isn’t the only path, right?”
“No war, absolutely. Forgotten the horrors of ten years ago already? Repeat that nightmare?”
“Heh…”
“Damn it…”
The young Baekun Clan head and Cheongsong Clan head eyed the fidgeting Leader and elders with frustration.
In their gazes burned the resolve that the next Alliance Leader had to be one of them.
A week passed since I arrived here, and I’d slept the whole time.
My condition had mostly normalized.
The day I could finally get up and walk, the old man revealed his identity.
Thankfully, it wasn’t some soap-opera twist like “You’re my hidden son!”
It was far more shocking.
“Truth is, I was an assassin in the Shadow Squad, just like you.”
“What? Then you’re with the Demonic Cult too, elder?”
“Demonic Cult?”
At those words, an immense killing intent poured from the old man.
If qi alone could kill, it’d be like this.
“Guh…!”
“You’re the first since that day to call me a Demonic Cultist to my face and live. Remember that.”
“Y-yes, I will.”
The old man withdrew his killing intent.
Only then did the blade-like energy shredding my body vanish like a lie.
“Elder, who exactly—”
He was probably the second strongest I’d ever seen, after the Heavenly Demon.
No, even across the entire martial world, few could match him.
“Truth is, I went through something similar to you.”
“Similar? You don’t mean—”
“Yes, about 30 years ago. I was in the Shadow Squad back then too. And like you today, I was used by the Demonic Cult… no, the Heavenly Demon, then discarded.”
“So this isn’t the first time?”
“I wasn’t the first, and you won’t be the last.”
“That Heavenly Demon fucker’s a real irredeemable son of a bitch, huh?”
“Ho? That’s some fine, sticky cursing. Sticks right in the ears.”
“So what happened after that, elder—no, senior?”